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ADDRESSES 



OX THE OCCASION OF THE 



INAUGURATION 



WlLLIA/H G. BALLANTINE 

AS 

PRESIDENT 

OF 

OBERLIN COLLEGE 



JULY 1.1891. 



ADDRESSES 



ON THE OCCASION OF THE 



NAUGURATION 



WILLIAM GAY BALLANTINE 



AS 



PRESIDENT Or OBERLIN COLLEGE 



JULY 1, 1891 



k5> 



\ m 



^UBL. LIBR, 
'CHANGE. 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

PRESENTATION OF THE COLLEGE SEAL, Ex-Pres. James H. Fairchild, 5 

INAUGURAL ADDRESS, President William G. Ballantine, .... 9 

ADDRESS OF R. A. MILLIKAN, '91 20 

ADDRESS OF REV. DAN F. BRADLEY, '82, 24 

ADDRESS OF MRS. MARTHA C. KINCAID, '65 26 

ADDRESS OF REV. B. A. IMES, '81 29 

ADDRESS OF PROFESSOR H. C. KING, '79 < . 33 

ADDRESS OF AMZI LORENZO BARBER, '67, ....... 40 

ADDRESS OF HON. JOHN SHERMAN 45 



PRESENTATION OF THE COLLEGE SEAL 



PRESIDENT JAMES H. FAIRCHILD 



My Brother, Wm. G. B aixanttne : It is my pleasant duty, 
this morning, at the introduction of these exercises, by the 
authority of the Trustees of Oberlin College, to make the form- 
al announcement of your election to the presidency of the 
college, and to transfer to your keeping the appropriate sym- 
bols of authority and responsibility. The responsibilities of 
this position fall upon you by the unanimous action of the 
Trustees, and with the hearty approval of all who share in 
the college work. This unanimous and hearty choice is based 
upon the assurance that in yourself, the Christian scholar, and 
teacher, and man of affairs, we find embodied the essential 
qualities of the standard-bearer who shall lead us on to the ac- 
complishment of the work to which God in his providence 
calls us. To this work you were born and trained, and in it 
you have already passed a probation of many years. The 
college is to be congratulated that such a man was at call, in 
the hour of its need. We are permitted to reckon it among 
the many evidences of the gracious Providence which has 
shaped its history. I am permitted also to congratulate you, 
my brother, upon the work to which you are called, the op- 
portunity which opens to you. The field which lies before 
you speaks for itself ; no words of mine can heighten your ap- 
prehension of it. Yet you feel that it utterly transcends your 
estimate. You do not need to look forward to some future 



day for opportunities of service. Every day will bring its 
opportunities, and the only relief from the apprehension of a 
service inadequate to the occasion you will find in the divine 
promise, "As thy days, so shall thy strength be." I con- 
gratulate you upon such relief available to every anxious ser- 
vant of the Master. I congratulate you further upon the fact 
that you will find chosen helpers on every side, ready to co- 
operate with you in the great work. An efficient and earnest 
board of trustees will gather about you, men of wide experi- 
ence in their various callings, and of profound interest in the 
work of Christian education which the college represents, a 
large proportion of them educated here, and coming back, 
from time to time, with the interest with which children 
return to the home of their youth. The unanimous and 
hearty call extended to you by this board, the source of all 
authority in the college, is a pledge of earnest support in your 
administration of the trust committed to you. Their confi- 
dence and co-operation will not fail you. You will find 
yourself surrounded by an efficient and harmonious and self- 
denying faculty, untiring in their efforts to make our common 
work a full success They will not assume that you have been 
elected to bear all the responsibility, or that every duty 
which has not been specifically assigned devolves naturally 
upon you. They will accept with all cheerfulness and 
fidelity their share of the common burden, and will rally about 
you, not as critics but as helpers in the common administra- 
tion. This has been the attitude of the Oberlin faculty for 
the generation past; so it will be for the generation to come. 
I congratulate you farther upon the kindly regard and 
loyalty of the thousands of students who shall gather here 
during the coining years. Such earnest and loyal hearts have 
been the reliance and the support of those upon whom the 
burden has rested in the years that are past ; they will con- 
tinue to accept their share of responsibility for the good order 
and the good name of the college. If in some hour of youth- 
ful excitement any should prove forgetful — and children are 
sometimes forgetful, even under the roof that shelters them — 



you may still appeal to their sense of responsibility and honor, 
and in the end they will not disappoint your confidence. In 
such a body of well-disposed and responsive young people 
the college has found its beauty and strength. The chief 
attractiveness of your position and your work will lie in the 
reasonableness and co-operation of this college community. 

I congratulate you too upon the support you will find in 
the larger community which surrounds the college. No 
educational institution was ever more favored in the consid- 
erateness and helpfulness of the community in the midst of 
which it was placed. No line of separation divides between 
the college and the town, but citizens and students and faculty 
work together in the interests of good order, and in the pro- 
motion of every good work. Upon this pattern the fathers 
built, and thus the colony and the college have grown, and 
thus they stand to-day. This pleasant relationship will lift 
from your shoulders many a burden, and relieve your heart 
of many an anxiety. 

Still other helpers will respond to your call, friends and 
benefactors of the college, from the east and the west, who 
have been blessed as stewards of the Lord with more than ordi- 
nary means, and with most generous hearts. Such friends have 
arisen in every emergency, and it is by their provision that 
the college stands to-day with the buildings and other equip- 
ments in which our hearts rejoice. They will not fail you in 
the coming years. Under all these favoring conditions you 
enter upon your work, and on these conditions I am per- 
mitted to congratulate you. 

You will pardon a personal reflection . Twenty-five years 
ago I stood where you stand to-day, and received from the 
venerable Father Keep the symbols of the office upon which 
you now enter. The outlook then brought some misgiving 
and apprehension ; to-day brings to me quiet and rest and a 
cheerful retrospect. I congratulate you upon the expectation 
that when your thirty years of service are filled out, you will 
find the work upon which you now enter a good one to retire 
from. With these congratulations I transfer to you the seal 



and charter of trie college, and we invoke uponiyou the bless- 
ing of God before whom our fathers walked. ' 'The Lord bless 
thee and keep thee; the Lord make his face shine upon thee 
and be gracious unto thee ; the Lord lift up his countenance 
upon thee and give thee peace. ' ' 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS 



PRESIDENT WILLIAM G. BALLANTINE 



Mr. President, Brethren and Friends: To receive 
from you by the hands of him whom we all venerate for his 
wisdom, reverence for his virtues, and love for the greatness 
of his heart, this sacred trust, fills me with conflicting emo- 
tions, which you will not expect me to put into words. 

For more than half a century the tears, the prayers, the 
gifts and the labors of pious men and women have been 
freely given to build up here an institution for Christ and 
for His church. The future of that institution is to be 
largely affected by what we do to-day. 

A man can receive nothing except it be given him from 
above. I should not dare to accept this high responsibility, 
but that the manner in which you offer it convinces me that 
it is the will of God whose I am and whom I serve. But so 
believing, I do accept it with deepest joy as a privilege far 
beyond any ambition I ever cherished; and relying upon 
divine help, I pledge to you my utmost endeavors and the 
full devotion of my heart. 

You, on your part, by the solemn ceremonies of this 
hour, will be bound to bear with my weaknesses in charity, 
and to give to the college in the future, as in the past, that 
loyal and efficient support without which all my efforts 
will be in vain. 

May He, without whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy, 



10 



graciously smile upon our united labors, and use them for 
the upbuilding of his kingdom. 

THE AMERICAN COLLEGE 

In the educational vocabulary of America, the word 
' 'college' ' is the one word of magic for the popular imagina- 
tion. School, institute, academy, seminary and university 
are honored names, but the college has a charm all its own. 
It differs from the others, not in degree but in kind. To it 
attaches "the glory that was Greece and the grandeur that 
was Rome," It gathers into itself the most diverse elements, 
and yet in undeniable unity. The gravity of learning and 
the ebullience of fun, manhood's strength and boyhood's 
ardor, eloquence and nonsense, friendship, romance, patriot- 
ism, heroism and religion — of such stuff a college is made. 
And the college relation is permanent. To be a Harvard 
man, or a Yale man, or an Oberlin man, is to have formed 
life-long connections in a fellowship of noble minds. The 
famous class of 1829 in Harvard College has been so for- 
tunate as to have in Oliver Wendell Holmes a poet interpreter, 
able every year to put into a new song the inexhaustible 
suggestions of a class reunion ; but those songs speak the 
common sentiments of the hundreds of classes in our hund- 
reds of colleges. It is simply what we all feel in meeting 
on the old campus to talk of — 

" The shining days when life was new, 
And all was bright with morning dew, 
The lusty days of long ago, 
When you were Bill and I was Joe." 

Still the times force us to ask, Has the American college 
any basis in the constitution and needs of man, and in the 
facts of his environment, or is it an accidental, provincial 
and temporary product of the evolution of education in this 
country? Is there at the basis of it any single conception, 
upon which numbers of thinking people can permanently 
unite — a conception simple enough for harmonious embodi- 



11 



ment and fruitful enough for perpetual growth? Is there 
any way of determining what a college ought to have and 
ought to attempt, any standard open to inspection and veri- 
fication by which we may ascertain how far a college is 
accomplishing its function? These are serious questions. 

The American college is unique. In Germany, the most 
learned land, there are no colleges. There youths are kept 
in what we should call academies until they are overgrown 
boys, and then they are sent to the universities when they 
are still undeveloped men. Many of our young professors 
who have finished their educations in Germany come home 
largely in sympathy with this system. Between the pressure 
for a high standard for entrance to college, pressure for 
promiscuous election among studies in college, and pressure 
for shortening of years devoted to college, will anything be 
left of the old institution, and will not the education of the 
future be better reached through other agencies, leaving the 
college, like the Grecian trireme, only a picturesque remi- 
niscence ? 

We think not. We do not think that the university will 
displace the college. They have wholly distinct fields. They 
differ as the square and the circle. The college stands for 
liberal culture; the university stands for special learning. 
The college, while fitting men for the university and sending 
them to the university, will remain, paradoxical as it may 
sound to say it, supreme and ultimate — the alma mater of the 
man — the most interesting, the most influential, the most 
loved of all institutions. For in the conception of a liberal 
education which the college embodies, we find just that sim- 
plicity, dignity, universality and fruitfulness which will 
insure respect, permanence, harmony and growth. 

The presence of the college in America and its absence in 
Germany are not accidental, but may be accounted for by 
the fundamental ideas of the two civilizations. Antiquity 
fixed its eye upon the tribe or state, and sought nothing for 
the individual but a useful function. Germany still feels the 
influence of this. America, first of the nations, recognized 



12 

the dignity and value, the rights and responsibilities of the 
individual. Our ideal is not the citizen, but the man — a 
child of God, made in the image of God, admirable only 
when he can say, "O God, I think thy thoughts after thee!" 
And so we have placed first the institution which educates 
man as man. 

The human being enters the world most helpless of 
animals, but with infinite capacity for development. Left 
to himself, he remains a stupid savage; educated, he may 
become a Garfield or a Gladstone. Manifestly there is a 
place for an institution which, taking him while still in the 
plasticity of boyhood, shall during the years of transition to 
the fixity of manhood, call forth every one of his powers into 
right exercise upon its proper object before attention is con- 
centrated on the narrow field of a special occupation. And 
this institution is the college. 

An American college is the embodiment of the means to 
a liberal education. In the notion of a liberal education we 
find the standard of what is essential to a college. Incident- 
ally the college may offer a share in its advantages to many 
who are not seeking liberal culture, but all of its arrange- 
ments should be primarily for the ideal youth, the young 
Garfield or the young Gladstone who seeks spherical develop- 
ment. Everything that belongs to complete human char- 
acter must be embraced in a college, for the college monop- 
olizes the youth at his formative period, and what it fails to 
do will probably be forever left undone. If a single power 
is left undeveloped, cramped, atrophied, the man fails of 
perfect manhood. Whatever is revealed by an analysis of 
man's nature and environment, must be met by adequate 
provision in the college. 

No definition of a college less inclusive than this can be 
defended; no grander can be framed. The college must 
attempt all, or it forfeits the right to attempt anything. The 
practical value of our definition is at once apparent when we 
advance to details. Man has body and soul, consequently 
the college must provide for physical training. The gym- 



13 

nasium and athletic field are not mere attachments to a 
college, but an integral part. Modern psychology dwells 
upon the intimate union of soul and body, and justifies the 
place which the Greeks, the inventors of civilization, gave 
to gymnastics. The tremendous enthusiasm for athletics 
which characterizes these recent years, beneath all its 
gambling and extravagancies, rests on profound convic- 
tions, and indicates a permanent advance of the American 
people. Our colleges have for generations held up the 
models of Greek eloquence, history and poetry for imitation; 
they are now beginning to set up the Greek statues, not 
merely for the aesthetic pleasure of contemplating them, but 
as ideals of real bodily attainment by American youth. It 
is a right ambition in our boys not only to speak like Apollo, 
but to have also the form and presence of Apollo. 

The soul is the nobler part of man, and to its culture 
most of the time of education must be given. Of its three 
faculties — intellect, sensibility and will — each must receive 
equal care. The assumption that a college has only, or at 
least predominantly, to do with the intellect, though wide- 
spread, is wholly unfounded. Looking at the complexity of 
man and the complexity of his relations, no justification can 
be found for the claim that he should devote the four best 
years of youth to a one-sided development simply of the in- 
tellect. Art culture has not yet its proper recognition among 
us as an indispensable part of liberal culture. Since the day 
that the morning stars sang together, music has be^n an 
essential accompaniment of existence. To appreciate it de- 
mands far more than technical preparation; it demands a 
noble soul. Technical skill in art, when the pure emotions 
are untrained, can only be turned to the service of sensuality. 
It was the capital blunder of Puritanism to deny the rights 
of man's aesthetic nature. In a world of beauty — a world 
where every grain of sand is a crystal and every dewdrop a 
glittering jewel; a world of flowers and stars, of leaping cata- 
racts and snowy summits, where the gorgeousness of day 
perpetually alternates with the magnificence of night; a world 



14 

where trie Madonna and the Christ-child are but types of 
womanly and infantine grace which every man worships in 
some living embodiments, — in this world Puritanism resolved 
to shut its eyes to the value of beauty. The descendants of 
the Puritans have not yet fully escaped from that blindness. 

The imperial part of man is his will. This is the citadel 
of his being. The education of the will — the complete sub- 
jugation of it to conscience — is therefore the supreme concern 
of the college. It is the most difficult part, but the most 
necessary part of the work. A college should be above all a 
place of piety; for conscience cannot grow refined in an at- 
mosphere of levity, but only in an atmosphere of prayer. 

All agree that a college must train the intellect, and some 
attempt little beyond. This part of the work is everywhere 
in the foreground. The other disciplines, whether more or 
less important, are grouped around this as a framework, and 
by it students are classified. Let us apply our definition of 
a liberal education in answer to the question, What studies 
should enter into the college course. A liberal education, 
we have seen, opens the view toward all thirty-two points of 
the compass. It renders the soul intelligent in respect to its 
whole environment. It must deal with the constitution and 
laws of matter and of mind, with the structure of the earth 
and of the stars, with the inorganic and the organic king- 
doms, with the nature of man and of God, with the individ- 
ual and society, with the past and the present, with language 
and literature, which are the vehicle of thought interchange. 
Attention, memory, judgment, and all the intellectual 
powers, must be trained to act in all these spheres, and such 
a beginning must be made in knowledge of essential facts 
and fundamental principles as shall enable the mind to 
deal with whatever materials for thought life may bring. 
Nothing must be omitted. Sphericity is the specific mark 
of a liberal education. It is a fallacy to assume that disci- 
pline in a few departments will qualify for thought in untried 
fields. It never will be possible to make a man so profound 
a theologian that he will be able to form an intelligent 



15 

judgment of Darwinism, or so skillful a comparative anato- 
mist that he will be a competent critic of the first chapter of 
Genesis. An unexpected light here falls upon the vexed 
question of elective studies. It may be wise for a college to 
allow wide liberty in the choice of studies, since a large per- 
centage of mankind must, for various reasons, accept an 
education somewhat less than liberal. But our ideal youth 
must be informed that he cannot omit athletics, or mathe- 
matics, or chemistry, or physics, or botany, or zoology, or 
geology, or astronomy, or languages, or rhetoric, or logic, or 
psychology, or social and political science, or history, or 
ethics, or theology, or music, or art. His range of electives 
must be within very narrow limits. If a single main subject 
is omitted, the sphere is incomplete and the education defec- 
tive. Individual taste can claim little regard when generic 
symmetry is sought. 

College training, with this vast array of subjects, differs 
from university training in that it nowhere aims to be ex- 
haustive; but seeks only so much of detail as may be neces- 
sary to the mastery of fundamental principles. Yet it can- 
not afford to be superficial. The work of a college must be 
as genuine as that of a university. It must have the same 
flavor of modesty and reality. While necessarily it must 
aim to impart information regarding what is known, and 
thus cannot escape being somewhat didactic, it must, above 
all things, inculcate the methods and spirit of original search 
for truth. The true college professor does not assume omni- 
science, but as an older investigator simply explains, illus- 
trates and justifies the processes of discovery, and exhibits 
the present state of knowledge in his field. Fruitful origi- 
nal work will be expected from under-graduates, throughout 
their course, under any right system. 

The objection is obvious that what we are saying 
amounts to a claim that universal knowledge is necessary to 
a liberal education, and that the brevity of life and the vast- 
ness of art have been overlooked. But a fundamental know- 
ledge in most of these departments is already gained by 



16 

many. Although new branches of science are constantly 
born, and the buried past of Assyria, Egypt and Greece is 
rising from the dust, and thus both the cradle and the grave 
are being robbed to furnish new electives, our improvments 
in methods of education outstrip in growth the empire of 
knowledge, just as our railroads enable President Harrison 
to-day to traverse the Union of forty-four states with a speed 
and comfort that Washington and Jefferson never realized 
within the meager area of the original thirteen. 

Man is a social animal. Before creation was complete, 
the principle was asserted that it is not good that man should 
be alone. Society consists of men and women. It never 
can be lifted above its conceptions of the normal relations of 
men and women. In Africa woman is man's slave; in 
Turkey she is his plaything; in America she is, theoretically 
at least, his companion. 

" The woman's cause is man's; they rise or sink 

Together dwarfed or godlike, bond or free." 
Only together can — 

" He gain in sweetness and in moral height, 

Nor lose the wrestling thews that throw the world; 

She mental breadth, nor fail in childward care, 

Nor lose the childlike in the larger mind; 

Till at last she set herself to man, 

Like perfect music unto noble words." 
A liberal education will therefore be co-education. Who 
can believe that it is the final achievement of educational 
science to gather young men to room in great barrack-like 
dormitories and to feed by themselves in vast halls, however 
splendid in architecture, and to study the universe apart from 
those who are to be their companions in dealing with the 
problems of the universe? A barrack life will have a bar- 
rack-room flavor. A world of one sex is as bad as a world of 
one color — a dull, wearisome, unwholesome, monstrous 
world; a world in whose morbid atmosphere rank growths 
spring up like weeds. How to understand and appreciate 
and treat the other sex, is too large a part of life to be omit- 
ted from the golden four years of college. 

A liberal education must be the education of a freeman. 



17 
It must emphasize the rights and still more the duties of 
each man as a citizen. A trained habit of intelligent inter- 
est in national affairs, in the workings of government in co- 
temporary politics and in all matters of public concern, even 
down to the council and constables of the college town, is 
essential. A sense of personal responsibility must be evoked. 
The old notion that students were more than others free 
from obligations to law and in possession of a special fran- 
chise for disorder, noise and petty depredations, was treason 
to the very purpose of their schooling. Nothing is so illib- 
eral as lawbreaking. Sin is always slavery. Contempt for 
the established rules of society is barbarism. 

The wickedly absurd doctrine of college honor which 
teaches that a student owes his first duty, not to the institu- 
tion whose bounty he enjoys, not to the instructors, also, who, 
with parental affection, labor for his success, not to the 
friendly community around him, but to some scapegrace 
whose irregularities frustrate hope and blot the fair fame of 
the college, and that this duty is rather to conceal than to 
correct wrong, has no place in a liberal education. Education 
will be no preparation for real life unless young men from 
their hearts begin to practice in college the same principles 
which rule good citizens outside. 

In training for civic duty in a free republic the old- 
fashioned debating society, closely modelled upon Congress 
and our state legislatures, is an invaluable contrivance now 
too generally fallen into neglect. Secret societies of course 
must be excluded from our ideal college, for secrecy has no 
legitimate place in wholesome civil life. Good works need 
no concealment; evil practices should not be allowed to enjoy 
its shield. 

Nature, which everywhere presents unity and variety, has 
made no exception of the human race. We say "the human 
race" but also with equal propriety "the races of men. " 
Where prejudice struggles for provincial sameness, our 
Creator has provided for cosmopolitan diversity. Not many 
have been so liberalized by their education that they cordially 



18 

fraternize with all the world, and can say with the grand 
Roman: k{, Homo sum: humani nihil a me alienum puto." 
Race prejudice is soul narrowness. It belittles the world and 
the Maker of the world. Education should lift one up to 
that high plane upon which the noblest of every race meet 
in mutual recognition, and rejoice in the variety of types as 
an enrichment of civilization. The liberality of world-wide 
sympathy will be best secured in a cosmopolitan institution, 
where men and women of many lands and races meet in 
sufficient numbers to require the practical exercise of this 
high magnanimity. 

Freedom entered this world first in the person of Jesus 
Christ. Unless the Son makes us free, we are the bond 
slaves of Satan. There can be no liberal education of one 
who in heart is slave. An Edgar A. Poe may be exquisitely 
sensitive to the music of verse, delicately skillful in word 
painting, but selfish, shameless, drunken, he was not liber- 
ally educated. In God we live and move and have our being. 
To study the universe without knowing him who is immanent 
in it, to study man without knowing the one perfect man, to 
read history without the divine key to the philosophy of 
history, is to waste effort. The college of liberal arts must 
be saturated with religion. The student's conversion 
should stand first in the solicitude of his teachers. For how 
shall he who loves darkness rather than light seek truth ? 

The proposition to leave religion out of a liberal educa- 
tion is more monstrous than would be the proposition to leave 
out natural science. It is assumed by many nowadays that a 
great school or a great teacher should have no avowed con- 
victions. All sides should be presented with equal candor 
and equal indifference, and the student left to choose. But 
this is to educate the student to regard indifference as mature 
and wise. The object of education is to train in practical 
life, which includes always investigation, decision and action. 
A learned man without courage in confession, decision in 
action, and enthusiasm in defence of truth is utterly unfit for 
a teacher of youth, for he misrepresents the very purpose of 



19 

education. He is not educated who does not have it wrought 
into him that always the knowledge of truth, or even the pre- 
ponderance of evidence, brings immediate obligation to decide 
and to act. 

In this fair college town of Oberlin we have a preparatory 
school, a college, and in theology, music, and at last in 
philosophy, genuine university work. Each of these great 
departments is essential in our educational scheme, and each 
is regarded with pardonable pride. All see the importance 
of cherishing both the academy and the university. But the 
college is the center. It is here that the Oberlin man and 
the Oberlin woman par excellence are disciplined for life. 
Our survey of what a college should be, based upon an 
exhaustive analysis of man's nature and environment, leads 
to the gratifying recognition of the fact that partly the wisdom 
of our predecessors, but much more largely the extraordinary 
favors of divine Providence, have supplied already here in 
remarkable degree every essential condition of liberal educa- 
tion. With religious reverence we receive this precious trust, 
not to revolutionize it, but assiduously to labor that every 
part'of the grand work may be brought nearer to perfection. 

Our ideal is a sublime one, but for that very reason it 
enlists the services of all our energies. It is the hope of 
Oberlin College to send forth each year a band of young men 
and women in physical strength and beauty, initiated into 
every department of thought, familiar with the laws and 
history of matter and of mind, acquainted with the greatest 
men and the best literature of all time, trained in the pursuit 
and love of truth, in sympathy with the whole human race, 
socially genial, politically free, morally sensitive, courageously 
firm in duty, alive to beauty, responsive to music, loyal to 
God, — in a word, liberally educated. In this purpose the col- 
lege finds the justification of its existence and the law of its 
growth. 



ADDRESS OF R. A. MILLIKAN 

REPRESENTATIVE OF THE STUDENTS 



To-day, on such an occasion as has not been seen for two 
and a half decades, such an occasion as, please God, may not 
be seen for two and a half more, my feeble voice mast first 
speak the ringing welcome of seventeen hundred students to 
their new president. 

And I am proud to represent the students. For five years 
I have been a student, and although we received our degrees 
yesterday, I am glad to appear to-day as still a student. It is 
true, and the students realize the fact, that upon them de- 
pends, in a very large degree, the prosperity of their institu- 
tution. The enthusiasm, or lack of it, which they show, the 
reports, favorable or unfavorable, which they scatter broad- 
cast over every state and every territory in the Union, are 
the one great advertising agency, the one great potent power 
to bless or blight. 

But whether I take my place to-day as a student or an 
alumnus, or as a kind of connecting link between the two — 
a sort of pollywog which has got his legs but hasn't lost his 
tail, and is somewhat loath to part with what has meant so 
much to him — I know that I have been long enough with the 
students to feel as the students feel; and I know that any 
words which I may utter of hope for, or attachment to, or 
confidence in their college and their president, will be but a 
feeble echo of the hope and confidence and love which the 
great body of students cherish. 

Two years ago, when that grand old man, who was nearer 



21 

and dearer to the student heart than it seemed that any other 
could be, tendered his resignation of office, there were none 
who heard it with deeper sorrow than did we students; and 
during the year and a half which intervened between that 
time and the choice of a new executive, there were none who 
waited with deeper solicitude or watched with keener interest 
to catch the first glimpse of him whom God had provided to 
be the leader of Oberlin' s onward march, than did we stu- 
dents. And when He who sees not as man sees, said, in His 
Providence, I have not chosen this one or that, but pointed 
out as the David who was to be the leader of this chosen col- 
lege, a man from our own faculty, a man whom every student 
in the institution knew as a profound scholar, a brilliant 
writer, a practical, able and tried executive, and above all a 
Christian gentleman, it was we — not the trustees, not the 
alumni, not the faculty — who raised ringing, heartfelt cheers 
for William Gay Ballantine, president of the new Oberlin. 
This was not simply because we had confidence in the wisdom 
and judgment of those who made the selection — the trustees 
and faculty — but because we knew and trusted in the man. 
And those thunders of applause, such as the old chapel never 
heard, which broke from the lips of fifteen hundred students 
on the first evening when President Ballantine took his seat 
in his new capacity, shall be a perpetual guarantee to him of 
the enthusiastic support of the great body of students in his 
every effort to further the interests of the college and to 
widen its sphereof usefulness. 

The hopes and the expectations ot the students for their 
college are indeed great. We believe that as an institution 
we stand upon the threshold of a new era; that the new ad- 
ministration has possibilities before it which its predecessors 
never saw; and in the name of all the students I congratulate 
you, President Ballantine, upon the greatness of opportunity 
and of responsibility which the Almighty Ruler has put upon 
the man who is to lead Oberlin College across the boundary 
of the twentieth century. But I am not here simply to con- 
gratulate you. I am here to assure you that the students are 



eager to co-operate with you, eager to follow you as Napo- 
leon's soldiers followed him, because they believe in you as a 
man qualified by your education, your abilities and by your 
Christian faith to lead in the great changes which are taking 
place, and which we believe are to continue to take place in 
our chosen institution. We have rejoiced as we have watched 
with intense interest the changes of the last five years. We 
have rejoiced at the broadening of the courses of study, at 
the increased requirements of candidates for degrees, at the 
growth of the scientific department, at the infusion of new 
and vigorous blood from other institutions; and now as young 
men we rejoice that a young man, with the best years and 
best energies of life before him, is called to direct these 
changes. We have no idle regrets to offer because Oberlin 
is changing. We live in different times and under other cir- 
cumstances than did those true men, the Oberlin pioneers, 
and the men who took upon their shoulders the burdens they 
laid down. We would imitate them in all that made them 
great, in their sincerity; but we cannot, if we would, imitate 
them in all their ways and methods. The methods of the 
past are not the methods of the present: 

"New occasions teach new duties, 

Time makes ancient good uncouih; 

He must upward still and onward, 

Who would keep abreast of truth." 

If we, in the different days we live in and the different 
paths we follow are but as earnest, as sincere men as they 
were, if our actions square as well with our convictions as 
theirs did, we shall be their worthy imitators, and as worthy 
as are they of the honor and the reverence of the generations 
which follow after. Under the new administration we look 
for a still further enlargement of endowment, broadening of 
the courses of study, increase of attendance and for university 
facilities; but with all this change which we rejoice in, we 
hope and pray and believe that the time will never come when 
Oberlin shall fail to teach that character, Christian character, 
is the prime requisite for usefulness in life and the prime end 
of education. 



23 

And so, President Ballantine, as their privileged representa- 
tive, I extend to yon the enthusiastic welcome of seventeen 
hundred student hearts to this honor and to this responsibility. 
We shall pray continually that God may bless you in your great 
work; that he may bless the faculty, who are to stay your 
hands; that he may provide true, noble men to fill the chairs 
which are continually being added, and when such great- 
souled men as he who resigns this year, he who has made 
himself loved by every student in the institution, and who, 
along with the political sciences, has taught us more of pure 
and true benevolence than books can ever teach, — when such 
men take their shoulders from the wheel, we pray that He 
may provide as true, as noble and as able men to fill their 
vacant chairs. And may your whole administration be pros- 
pered with the prosperity which is of Him — not of the world. 
And as this great institution whose helmsman you are hence- 
forth to be starts out again upon its beneficent voyage, the 
great chorus of student voices rings out after it: 

" Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea, 
Our hearts, our hopes are all with thee; 
Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears, 
Our faith, triumphant o'er our fears, 
Are all with thee, are all with thee." 



ADDRESS OF REV. DAN F. BRADLEY 

REPRESENTATIVE OF THE COLLEGE ALUMNI * 



My only justification for speaking, at this time and under 
these circumstances, is that I have learned here in Oberlin 
to obey orders whenever these men command. And yet 
what alumus would not be glad to stand here, and speak his 
gratitude and his love for alma mater ? It is with a profound 
sense of gratitude that we return to Oberlin, and note the pro- 
gress made here in the years that have passed since we went 
forth. We note progress everywhere; in the campus, and in 
the buildings. It is a better glee club, and a better musical 
union than we used to have. This college yell, developed in 
its bilateral and radial symmetry, existed in rudimentary form 
only, in our day ; and the Commencement Annual of crude 
make-up has become a beautiful volume. There is progress 
everywhere, not to say anything of base-ball, which might 
involve me in the sphere of apologetics. The alumnus is 
impressed with the fact that there are four great schools here: 
a school of music that has no superior in the land; a school 
of divinity, where graduates stand equal to any ; a preparatory 
school inferior to none; and the college, center and chief of 
all. In all these departments there has been vast progress, 
and the alumnus is grateful that this progress has come so 
naturally; that the changes of administration have come 
without revolution, and, above all, the mantle of Elijah has 
fallen upon Elisha, and yet the fiery chariots have not come. 
May they long be delayed. There is a significance here that 
The old Oberlin still lives and will live, and 



25 

the inaugural address we have heard assures us that the old 
is to be perpetuated in the new. 

Some man has said that he would rather be President of 
Oberlin College than President of the United States. Surely 
he who is to occupy the seat of Fairchild, Finney and Mahan 
may well be proud of the honor. I congratu.ate you, sir, 
that this is to be your privilege. May God bless you, and 
bless Oberlin College. 

* Hon. T. B Burton, representative of the College Alumni, was pre- 
vented by sickness from appearing, and Mr. Bradley's remarks were 
extempore. 



ADDRESS OF MRS. MARTHA C. KINCAID 

REPRESENTATIVE OF THE COLLEGE ALUMNA. 



Dear Friends : After seven years of absence I come 
back to Oberlin to-day with thankfulness and pleasure. In 
the changes which have come through your new and beauti- 
ful buildings, I rejoice. Seeing is believing. I find myself 
feeling much as the queen of Sheba did at the court of king 
Solomon. ' 'And she said to the king, It was a true report 
that I heard in mine own land. Howbeit, I believed not the 
words until I came, and mineeyes had seen : and behold the 
half was not told me." 

It is because I believe in Oberlin that I rejoice to speak 
to-day for the twelve hundred women who have gone out as 
alumnae from this place. Dear Oberlin, we are your loyal, 
loving daughters. We love you, not simply with the old 
child love, because you are our mother, but because, with 
our older eyes, we still see in you that which we can respect 
and follow. With all these added charms which age has 
brought, we do not want our mother to change too much. 
We are glad to-day she has this pretty gown of grass and 
foliage, and these beautiful buildings — the pearls sent by 
loving hands — but we want her to be the same brave mother 
still. 

In all the shifting, puzzling questions of our modern life 
we trust Oberlin to speak, as of old, with no uncertain sound, 
Is it right ? W T ill God be honored ? Will it be for the good 
of all ? 

We trust her as of old, to take her stand on the impreg- 



27 

nable rock of the Holy Scriptures. We trust her to teach 
the word, of God. Not what it is not, but what it is, and 
what it says. Positive truths, surface truths. We are 
"children groping in the night, children crying for the light. " 
Nothing but this word let down from above will help us. 
Oh Oberlin, honor the word, and give as of old its message 
to the world ! 

We trust more than all else that the young people coming 
here may find the same old atmosphere of consecration and 
devotion. God first, not in word only but in fact, in the 
hearts of this people. They will need of Oberlin nothing so 
much as this to emphasize the Christian training they have 
already received, or to lift them above the clouds of doubt or 
worldliness which have encircled them. 

We trust Oberlin may never build too many dormitories, 
to make it other than a home for its students; that the time 
may never come when the students, the college and the 
town are less one in heart, and work, and aim, than now. 

We trust Oberlin will never change its old time care of 
its girls and boys. We would not have Oberlin grow more 
lynx-eyed, and hedge in the students with exact, circum- 
stantial and irritating rules. We trust, however, that Oberlin 
will keep to its old ways, and remember that law is useful, 
that we never grow too old to be under restraint, or to have 
our time, our habits or our life guarded with the loving 
"Thou shalt not." We trust Oberlin' s faculty still to fit 
its courses of study for drawing out, not for cramming; for 
making culture the stepping stone, not the aim; and above 
all for training its students for active useful service in the 
world. 

After all, however, we the alumnae feel that Oberlin is 
Oberlin, has been Oberlin, and will be Oberlin, not because 
of its theories and aims simply, but because of its men. 
Because it has had President Mahan, President Finney, Pres- 
ident Fairchild, and will have President Ballantine. The 
first of these I knew only through my father but; mother 
and he were engaged in the president's front parlor, so my 



28 

sources of information are not so remote after all. Who 
could have been better fitted than President Mahan, by his 
clear, keen reasonings, to gather about the young college in 
the woods the early students — young men of age, experience, 
thought and consecration ? May Oberlin never lose the 
stamp left by these, its earliest men. 

God sent us President Finney, a man of the century. 
How much we then admired him. How much we now love 
him. Panoplied by the Holy Spirit, swaying the multitudes 
by his logic, bringing thousands to the Saviour; punctilious in 
his dress, a gentleman in his bearing, beautifully ripening in 
his old age before our eyes, and dying among us, his grave 
is with us unto this day. Thank God for President Finney. 

Days of upheaval and unrest which always follow a great 
civil war, were coming on. We needed a clear head, a 
balanced judgment and a wise heart, and President Fairchild 
was here. Dear President Fairchild, we the alumni, the 
sons and daughters of Oberlin, love you. You have steadied 
us, guided us, helped us in these years. Your words are in 
our hearts, your face looks down from our walls, and your 
spirit, we trust, will more and more dominate our lives. If 
in the faintest manner our lives may influence others, 
as yours has influenced ours, we are content. 

When word came through the morning papers, to our 
various homes, that you, President Ballantine, were chosen 
our leader, our hearts said, surely God is still in the counsels of 
his people. We trust you and welcome you, as a comrade 
beloved. We are read}- to trust even our beloved Oberlin in 
your hands, sure that, as in you lies, you will keep it, the 
Oberlin of our love. That while it grows and expands, it 
will still be true to its early aims, and will still be Oberlin, 
not Harvard, or Columbia, or Cornell, or Yale, or Smith, or 
Wellesley, or Yassar, but simply Oberlin. 



ADDRESS OF REV. B. A. IMES 



REPRESENTATIVE OF THE THEOLOGICAL ALUMNI 



When "Cincinnati Hall" was reared up like a tabernacle 
in the wilderness, it was remarkable for two things — the 
commonness of its architecture, and the uncommonness of its 
inhabitants — that first class in the Oberlin Theological Semi- 
nary. I need not dwell upon the reason for their coming 
hither. A peculiar spell was upon their minds. Indeed the 
times were calling for men, such as Paul exhorts Timothy 
to seek out — "The things which thou hast heard and learned 
of me, the same commit thou to faithful men who shall be 
able to teach others also. ' ' Again he says, ' 'hold fast the form 
of sound words." Bringing the two ideas together, we have 
for our theme — "Faithful Men and Sound Words." 

The call and choice of the first President of Oberlin Col- 
lege was no doubt guided and inspired by the same spirit that 
had aroused the consciences, and poured light into the souls 
of the Lane Seminary students. To do her best for such 
pupils, the names of Asa Mahan and John Morgan must grace 
the roll of Oberlin's leading instructors; the former ?s Presi- 
dent. The evangelist Finney must become Professor of 
Theology, the action of the trustees, in reference to him, 
having been decided, agninst many misgivings, in favor of a 
high moral principle, and in the fear of God, rather than of 
man. Oberlin in that crisis was unconsciously laying deep 
and well a foundation which is ever the open secret of her 
power for good. A child attempted — not in vain — a giant's 
task. 



30 

There is something wonderful in that eargerness of rea- 
soning — that devoutness of praying, whereby the teacher and 
the student sought out the deep and most vital things of the 
word of God "That which the Holy Ghost teacheth, com- 
paring spiritual things with spiritual." We need not pity 
them now, that speaking and acting out their strong con- 
victions they brought down scorn and even malice upon 
their devoted heads. We rather call them faithful men. 
They were deeply moved to utter sound words. Their only 
fault — we should rather say their great virtue — was the earnest 
effort to bring the truth of God fully and faithfully to the 
consciences of men. 

As to doctrine, such men are not afraid of creeds, nor yet, 
having clearer light, a revision of creeds. With them a re- 
statement of truth would not pass over to recantation of the 
essential of faith. In the end, the highest test of any doctrine 
must be its fruits, when it has had full opportunity for ap- 
plication to human life and conduct. Judging them also by 
the outcome of their lives and teachings, how, in the later 
years, we have with great praises endorsed even the most 
radical words and deeds of the fathers. With a less uncom- 
promising spirit, could they have been the strong men they 
were? Making their differences — their strong personalities — 
the subject of united prayer, what a blending it was of the 
radical and the conservative ! 

On the whole, the churches in general had but feeble 
influence over the great moral questions of the times. The 
Nation itself was writhing in the deadly grasp of the slave 
power ; and when we think of these things, how can we ex- 
aggerate the high and solemn mission of Oberlin at the first ? 

Is the case different to-day ? Some great questions have 
been settled. But is the duty, the mission of the present less 
serious and urgent ? It seems to me that the conflict is only 
more subtle in its nature, and rises to more spiritual light. 
The "principalities and powers," "the spiritual wickedness 
in high places," are certainly none the less bold and per- 
sistent. 



31 

Look at the masses of organized labor, led mainly by 
atheistic men ! Look at avarice and low ambition, threaten- 
ing to block the wheels of all reform movements, and religion 
itself in imminent danger of being emasculated — paralyzed by 
a general assault upon belief in the supernatural. 

It would seem that the popular man is one who sneers 
at all positive religious belief. Surely it is a time for the 
putting forth of sound words. The chief instructor in a col- 
lege never had a higher task, nor greater opportunity. His 
every utterance goes abroard. The public press is many- 
tongued, and myriad- winged. 

Amid all this the anxious question with us out in the wide 
field is not what is to be the theme of the next new novel 
which shall meddle with theology. We care not so much 
what turn the higher criticism may take, but how shall the 
best culture of mind be brought to the service of Christ, and 
the Holy Oracles still more clearly be made to appear as com- 
ing indeed from God. Let new light break forth ! There 
can be no true light but that which is by the Holy Spirit, 
and from Him who lighteth every man that cometh into the 
world. 

In this faith the foundations here were well laid, and to- 
day the place whereon we stand is holy ground. No flame 
of fire in a bush has been seen, but the Divine voice has verily 
been heard in the heart. Oberlin theology has been the 
dominating influence, giving unceasing energy and zest to all 
other working forces here. Indeed, this whole community 
has been the Theological Seminary. 

What could have been more impressive than the eager 
inquiry of President Mahan and his co-laborers after the 
holiest life, and the richest possibilities of Christian experi- 
ence as their daily ideal ? His successor put intense empha- 
sis upon the power of prayer, and the personal' agency of the 
Holy Spirit. Still later the call for a ' 'Revival of Righteous- 
ness," as essential to the maintenance of all that is vital and 
valuable in religion, was not less timely and significant. 

A noted skeptic says: " The churches of to-day speak, for 



32 

the most part, in an apologetic tone. They apologize and 
explain away what a former generation asserted dogmat- 
ically. The age is one of material splendor and intellectual 
achievement, but of spiritual emptiness. The people are 
easy-going. They wish to enjoy even religion with a kind of 
sensuous enjoyment, whereas for conviction of truth we must 
struggle, and the conflict must go on, and the moral indolence 
of the present day be suppressed. ' ' 

If these be the sentiments of an agnostic, what is then the 
fitting utterance of the teacher of Holy Writ, one whose im- 
press is to mould the men who shall come through college, 
and in time attempt the work of Gospel ministry ? We are 
here, Mr. President, to express the highest hopes that the 
choice of a new standard-bearer has been Divinely controlled, 
and that the seed hitherto sown shall in the future bring 
forth a still more abundant and gracious fruitage. 

We expect that true progress will be made without dig- 
ging up or removing the old and well proved landmarks — 
those principles and doctrines which are always vital to faith, 
and which if once true are true forever. 

It is a privilege to be here to-day, to express our gratitude 
for the sympathy and the help which we, as students, received 
in former years. May the blessing of God rest upon those who, 
growing old in service, are here to-day. Moses presented to 
the people his own successor ; and we may enter into sym- 
pathy with his own feelings when he said, ' ' Let the Lord, 
the God of the spirits of all flesh, set a man over the congre- 
gation who shall go in and out before them." And may it 
be ours to say, as we give our confidence and sympathy to the 
new President, as he shall enter into the duties and trials of 
his high office, " The spirit of Elijah doth rest upon Elisha. y> 



ADDRESS OF PROFESSOR H. C. KING 



REPRESENTATIVE OF THE FACULTY 



It is made my great pleasure to-day, Mr. President, on 
behalf of your colleagues of the Faculty, to bring you a word 
of congratulation, of well-wishing and of allegiance. 

I congratulate you, sir, that you have been called to the head 
of a growing college; that for you there is open to-day the 
fountain of perpetual youth. You are not brought into a 
graveyard to look about on tombstones, with their inscrip- 
tion — "Think on dying," but you are brought into connec- 
tion with a college so ' l rammed with life, ' ' to use a phrase 
of Lowell's, so crowded with youthful vigor, that its vitality 
is contagious, and you cannot grow old. You are not called 
to be the crown of a fossil, however beautiful, but the head 
of a living organism, albeit at times its growth may seem too 
rapid for its garments, and its arms project too far through 
its sleeves. 

I congratulate you, sir, that you are called to the presi- 
dency of a college that stands for something. The " Oberlin 
idea" may be very intangible, very difficult to formulate, 
but still less, after your address to-day, shall we think it with- 
out content. I congratulate you that you are to stand at the 
head of an institution which has definite ideals, aims and 
principles of its own, which is not striving to be a second 
anything else, but stands for something. 

I congratulate you that you are placed to-day at the head of 
a college in which you believe; in whose aims and work and 
God-given mission you profoundly believe. No diviner 



34 

privilege is granted to any man than to spend his life in a 
work, to which, unreservedly and with joy, he may give 
every throb of heart and every pulse of brain. And this 
divinest privilege is granted to-day to you. I congratulate 
you from my heart. 

And I congratulate you, Mr. President, that you are called 
to the head of a democratic college — a college that stands, 
not only against the aristocracy of color, the aristocracy 
of sex, the aristocracy of wealth, the aristocracy of cliques, 
and the aristocracy of mere intellectual brilliancy, but 
a college in which the faculty are open to the students, 
and, what is perhaps more remarkable, the students open to 
the faculty; a college in which the trustees, even, are not 
dictators, seeking to checkmate the faculty, but hold that 
curious idea of their office that leads them definitely to record 
their intention not to interfere in internal management, and 
who in time, and thought, and labor are co-workers with the 
faculty for the promotion of the college they love. I con- 
gratulate you, sir, that in consequence of their democratic 
policy, the faculty themselves had a part in your election — 
for in this very fact you have an assurance of allegiance 
stronger than any that to-day can formally be given you. 
And I congratulate you, unfeignedly, that because of this 
same democratic policy you yourself are called to be, not 
dictator but president. It will happen that you can act less 
arbitrarily; but the wise man seeks not arbitrariness but 
wisdom. It may easily happen at times that affairs will be 
less smoothly running — a republic often shows more disturb- 
ance than an absolute monarchy — but the disturbances will 
be those of healthful life. This policy, Mr. President, like 
the blessed state of matrimony, will enable you to divide 
your burdens and multiply your successes; for it makes it 
possible for you to lay under glad tribute the best powers of 
every man in your faculty; and every man, sure that he will 
be allowed to count for all that there is in him, becomes 
bound to the college by ties that it will take a very strong 
call to break. 



35 

I congratulate you that you are called to the head of a col- 
lege in which you are free to stand practically where all 
educators stand theoretically — -for character; that you are 
free to use all the means that shall tend most certainly to that 
one end — character. And I congratulate you, moreover ^ 
that standing thus both theoretically and practically for 
character, you are free not to ignore the experience of the 
past, not to suppose that the Christian centuries have taught 
us nothing, but upon the clear scientific basis of long re- 
peated and varied experiment, to plant character, not apolo- 
getically, but confessedly, avowedly, aggressively, unhesitat- 
ingly, on a religious and a Christian foundation. And I 
congratulate you, further, that while free thus to stand- 
aggressively for the great verities — for character, for Christ, 
for the church — you are yet utterly untrammeled by church 
lines and creeds. You sign no formula, you will never need 
to consult any catechism to discover the fitness of any candi- 
date. You follow men large enough to believe more in the 
working of the Eternal Spirit through the ages and in every 
age, than in the theological omniscience of any man or body of 
men in any age. You have one charge only, only one apos- 
tolic succession to secure: " The same commit thou to faithful 
men." The test will be a closer one than that of any creed, 
and it will be living, growing. 

I am able thus to congratulate you, Mr. President, that 
you have been called to the head of a college whose greatest 
glory is the character of its students and alumni; concerning 
whose alumni the world itself is disappointed if it do not find 
them working in their every community for the building up 
of the kingdom of God among men. Great is your heritage. 

And speaking now, not for the faculty but of them, I may 
be allowed for a moment to congratulate you that others have 
seen in your faculty men so different in temperament, in 
training and in measures, that if uniqueness be, according to 
Lotze, the condition of immortality, they are quite certain of 
immortality, at least in part; a faculty different enough, seem- 
ingly, to insure that the college wagon shall not run in ruts, 



36 

— that is itself not so much a wagon as a road-scraper, seem- 
ing to allow no possibility of ruts. I congratulate you on 
the promise of a clear road. I congratulate 3^011 that the 
faculty care less for consistency — that "bug-bear of little 
minds" — than for progress; and yet, that differing as they 
may and do often as to means, you may know their agree- 
ment as to the great aims, and that there is made possible, 
therefore, a harmony that is the more real because not a 
mechanical uniformity. Upon a genuine harmony of think- 
ing and differing men, you are to be congratulated; from a 
uniformity that comes from the domination of two or three, 
may you be delivered. And if, perchance, some ungracious 
friend should whisper in your ear, Mr. President, that 
according to the old adage — young men for war, old men 
for counsel — you are likely to have more war than counsel 
on your hands, I may only suggest, sir, that you are not an 
old man yourself, and that, moreover, these young men are 
every year growing older, and that some of them, perhaps, are 
pretty old for their age, and that in any case, it happens with 
college instructors as with many other spirited animals, that 
if you get what you want, you must u catch them young." 

It is certainly fitting, Mr. President, that I should con- 
gratulate you, after your inaugural address to-day, that you 
stand for a college so broadly representative of the greatest 
and widest interests. But most of all, Mr. President, I con- 
gratulate you that you have been called to the head of a 
college in whose history the providence of God is plainly 
to be seen, and of whose mission, and message, and future 
you may, therefore, feel assured. This blessing and this trust 
you share with all your fellow workers. 

And I congratulate you, finally, that it is. yours to be the 
fourth in the line of Mahan, and Finney, and Fairchild; and 
thus I may pass to our first wish for you. If in Hegelian for- 
mula I may make Finney the thesis, and Fairchild 
the antithesis, may it be yours to be the synthesis, 
Finney, the fearless fighter, the zealous, single-eyed, 
the religious prophet and seer — representing the Prophets 
of the old Covenant. Fairchild, the thoughtful, the 



philosophic, the symmetrical — standing for the normal, for 
the wholesome, for benevolence, for the revival of righteous- 
ness, for life — representing the Wisdom of the Old Covenant; 
may it be yours to unite Mahan, the L,aw, Finney, the 
Prophets, and Fairchild, the Wisdom of the Old Covenant, 
and make the transition to the New. 

May it be yours to preside over a college, every one of 
whose students and faculty is absolutely loyal to the truth, 
and in earnest to seek it, and for this very reason is impatient 
of trifling and quibbling and indifference, and lack of convic- 
tion, and has become capable of mighty convictions, 
of mighty surrenders, of mighty endeavors; a college 
whose religion is not aesthetic nor ascetic, but the life that is 
life indeed, and which therefore, recognizes, not vaguely, 
that man has three natures, but recognizes the three fully in 
their God-given relations and mutual dependence, and that 
believes that what God has thus joined together man puts 
asunder at his own great loss and peril; and that, remember- 
ing that the body is foundation and condition and medium, 
meets its every student with the challenge of Rabbi Ben 
Bzra: 

Thy body at its best, 
How far can that protect thy soul on its lone way? 

And in the attainment of these high ends, already clearly 
indicated by you, I may pledge to you our knightly oath of 
allegiance, department by department. 

I pledge you a department of mathematics, keen as the 
edge of sarcasm, and as unerring as love; that in its inner 
sanctuary of the purely mathematical, allows the sacrilegious 
tread of no despairing empiricism that does not know whether 
parallel lines may not meet in another world; but that, 
because it may here claim absoluteness, in humble modesty 
crosses itself and confesses that in the realm of life — the realm 
always of the only probable — it may not dictate. 

I pledge you a department of natural science that shall 
observe, record, experiment, generalize, classify, and draw 
inductions with the painstaking exactness of the great biogra- 
pher of earth worms; but that shall not forget that man is 



38 

not a mere registering and classifying animal; that remem- 
bers that underneath all science there must lie a metaphysics 
quite other than the shallow empiricism of the unthinking 
mind ; that knows that human nature is a part of nature, and 
that the ideal has its claims, and will not suffer the atrophy 
of the best in man ; that recognizes that science has its seven 
riddles, insolvable by science, and its three great gulfs im- 
passable by science. 

I pledge you a departmentof history that shall be impar- 
tial, accurate, painstaking in research and induction, and 
careful in the limitation of its conclusions; but that will not 
mock a unity seeking mind with mere bundles of labelled 
facts, without unity, without interpretation, without thought, 
without evolving plan, without end; that, with Bunsen, sees 
God in history, and, with Augustine and Edwards, recog- 
nizes an end great enough to justify the cost of centuries. 

I pledge you a department of political science that shall 
not be more skeptical and pessimistic tham Hume, or the 
founder of u dismal science " himself; that will not assume 
selfishness as its one guiding star; but, willing to blink no 
hardest fact, still believes in the possibility of the application 
of the ethics of Christ to every social problem, and with 
patient, assiduous study and toil, seeks to evoke personal de- 
votion to this test of the twentieth century. 

I pledge you departments of language and literature that 
shall maintain, in the face of a sense-following, pleasure-lov- 
ing and utilitarian demand, the justification by thought of 
the minute study of thought's own instrument and embodi- 
ment, V and the eternal fitness of the study of the eternally 
beautiful, 

I pledge you departments of music and art that justify 
themselves in their response to God-given instincts, and are 
not merely technical, but educational, because conscious of 
their own aims, appeals and principles, and are handmaids to 
all the ideal in man, because anticipating and sharing with 
religion, philosophy and love, the concrete embodying of the 
ideal in the real. 

And I pledge you a department of philosophy, clear that 



39 

it wants only the truth, and therefore fearless and open- 
minded ; that bases itself on facts of science and psychology, 
and proceeds from them in firm belief in its own laws; that 
welcomes the investigation of every phenomenon of the knee- 
jerk, but believes with Wundt, that mind is more than any 
physiology can show; that knows, with Tyndall, that if we 
could follow every motion of every molecule of the brain, 
there would still remain a chasm between the physical and 
the psychical " intellectually impassable ;" that with L,otze, 
finds the mechanical no less mysterious than the spiritual, 
and believes that it knows mind even better than matter; 
that believes, with Simon, that that which paralyzes thought 
cannot be true for thought; that will not crucify to a narrow 
system a wider life; that, while trusting reason unhesitatingly, 
on the same grounds in all reason recognizes the legitimacy 
of the whole nature, believing that no single, logical princi- 
ple may formulate personality, and that a philosophy or theory 
of life which dries the fountains of emotion, paralyzes 
thought and withers will at its inception, has no claim to urge 
at the bar of reason. 

May it be yours, then, Mr. President, to preside over a 
college whose members, while grappling the deepest problems 
of thought ' 'apply Christian principles in an earnest spirit to 
current evils;" where the largest force is personality; where 
men count more than things, albeit they are very costly things; 
where the aim is not the turning out of finished products, but the 
sending forth of growing men and women, less loyal to their 
teachers than to the spirit they have seen imperfectly shown in 
them. And in this high service, Mr. President, my friend 
and my brother, it is my great pleasure to give you my hand 
in pledge of the allegiance of all your colleagues in the 
Faculty, — and there are few ties more close than those which 
bind the members of this Faculty. Each one of us would be 
your Jonathan, strengthening your hand in God; and to this 
high service, into which we are divinely called, may Almighty 
God, whose you are and whom you serve, whose we are and 
whom we serve, make us able. 



ADDRESS OF AMZI LORENZO BARBER. 

REPRESENTATIVE OF THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES. 



Mr. President : I deem myself happy to speak on this 
memorable occasion in behalf of the Board of Trustees, al- 
though I accepted the part with reluctance because others 
deserved the honor and would have rendered better service. 
When, twenty-four years ago, I stood upon this platform to 
receive my diploma, the office of a Trustee of Oberlin College 
appeared to my boyish fancy as a very high and exalted one; 
ranking almost with that of a United States Senator. The 
Trustees of that early time were very wise and powerful men, 
of large physical and mental stature. ' ' They were giants in 
those days. ' ' Time has in a measure rectified the vision and 
given a truer perspective; but I am sure that some halo will 
ever attach to the forms in which memory weaves the faces of 
those who then sat in dignified array on this very platform. 
Alas! but few of them are living, and only two of the sur- 
vivors are now members of the Board. Of these two, one 
was elected in 1845, an d has rendered 46 years of continuous 
service. He is now absent in Europe. The other, elected in 
1866, today delivered the Charter and Seal of the College to 
his successor in the office of the Presidency. God grant that his 
last days may be his best days, and that his life may long be 
spared to be for us at once a pattern and a benediction. 

The Trustees of today are modest men, and it will be 
neither fitting nor necessary to speak of their virtues. And 
yet I cannot refrain from referring to one who is also in 
Europe, although his heart is with us today, and of whom I 



41 

think we will all agree it is not inappropriate to say that by his 
munificent gifts to the College and by his faithful personal 
attention to its affairs, he deserves to be distinguished at once 
as the Model Trustee and the Model Alumnus. 

Responsibility begets conservatism, and so it is quite safe 
to say that the Trustees of Oberlin College will be conserva- 
tive. This, put into plainer English, means that the Trustees 
will make safe and profitable investments of the funds of the 
College; they will adhere to the customs and traditions 
of the past, and allow of changes only when they are clearly 
wise and best; they will act as a balance wheel to keep all 
parts of the complicated machinery of the College Department 
in steady and uniform motion for obtaining the highest ef- 
ficiency "and best results. Last, and by no means least, when 
recommendations come from the Faculty asking for additional 
instructors and appliances, you may be sure the Trustees will 
act discreetly, and unanimously refer the matter to a com- 
mittee for further consideration. What will come of it there- 
after, I will not now undertake to say. I fear that too often 
the matter may be put into some convenient pigeon-hole. 

But the Trustees will do more than this; they will act ag- 
gressively. They will, both individually and as a body, do 
all in their power to promote the interests of the College and 
to provide needed funds for the purpose. But, is it fair to 
expect the Trustees (and now I speak for the rest and not for 
myself) to "work for nothing and board themselves;" to pay 
their own traveling expenses, amounting in some cases to 
$50.00 or $100.00 for every session attended; to give their 
time, and then, in addition to all this, to provide the funds 
for the uses of the College as well ? 

I ask these questions not in any spirit of complaint (for 
there is not the slightest occasion) but to set out clearly what 
the function of the Trustees is, and to remind ourselves that, 
after all is said, Oberlin College is not the College of the 
Trustees; it is not the College of the Faculty; it is not 
merely the College of Undergraduates. In its fullest and 
largest sense it is and must always be the College of the Alumni 



42 

and of all who receive instruction within its doors. Primarily 
from its Alumni and students, and indirectly through them, 
must every College receive its principal gifts and bequests. 

Omitting the present year, Oberlin has graduated 2,537, 
of whom 2,160 are still living. The number of students 
registered in the last catalogue exceeds 1,700, of whom there 
were 1,300 in actual attendance at one time. The number 
in the College proper is between 400 and 500, and has in- 
creased in 10 years by more than 130 per cent. The Faculty 
has kept pace, and now numbers over 70 against 47 but 5 
years ago, the regular Professors having increased from 18 to 
26. The College now offers 109 courses in all, of a term each 
(most of which are 4 or 5 hour courses) of classical college 
work, in 17 departments of study. The student has 4,713 
hours (not counting labratory work) of elective work from 
which to elect 1,098. The elective courses have increased 
from 7 to 90 since 1883. These are striking figures, and show 
how wonderful has been the growth during the past few 
years. Turning to the financial condition and requirements 
of the institution, we find that the general endowment is less 
than half a million, besides trust funds for scholarships and 
special uses amounting to about $200,000.00. For the year 
1890, the total receipts from all sources except the Conserva- 
tory of Music were nearly $82,000.00 and the total expendi- 
tures were about $81,000.00. The receipts from the Con- 
servatory were $35,000.00 and the expenditures about 
$29,000.00. 

These figures may seem large to those who have given 
little or no thought to the requirements of modern institu- 
tions. Harvard, Yale and Cornell have each many millions 
of endowment, and some of them receive in single years gifts 
and bequests amounting to more than double the entire gen- 
eral endowment of Oberlin. Yale alone, in 1890, received 
over $1,000,000, one-half of which, however, came from the 
Feyerweather estate. In a recent article Prof. King has stated 
that Oberlin "could today wisely place $1,000,000 without 
making a single needless expenditure. " Now, if Feyerweather 



43 

had given $500,000 to Oberlin for the endowment fund, 
the Trustees would have been compelled to invest it, and at 
5 per cent per annum it would produce only $25,000 yearly. 
This sum divided by 2,000, the number of living Oberlin 
Alumni, is only $12.50. In other words, if the Oberlin 
Alumni should each send to Oberlin a sum equal only to the 
tuition of a single term, the College would at once realize as 
much as it could obtain from a year's income on $500,000. 
The potency of a multitude of small sums is well understood 
by financiers. Last year Yale graduates residing in New 
York began a movement to secure regular contributions 
yearly by Yale Alumni. The scheme has proven highly suc- 
cessful; so that President Dwight, in his last Annual Report, 
devotes more space in commendation of it than he gives to 
the half million received from Feyerweather's estate. 

The founders of Oberlin College adopted the Oberlin 
Covenant, the first principle of which read as follows: "We 
will hold and manage our estates personally, but pledge as 
perfect a community of interest as though we held a com- 
munity of property." 

This pledge on the part of later generations at least, has 
been honored more in the breach than in the observance; 
but surely the Alumni of Oberlin will not permit the Alumni 
of Yale to surpass them in loyalty to and in remembrance of 
their Alma Mater. 

In 1780 the population of the United States was 
3,000,000; during the first quarter of a century it doubled 
and became 6,000,000; during the second quarter it doubled 
again and became 12,000,000; during the third quarter it 
doubled again and became 25,000,000, and during the fourth 
quarter it doubled the 25,000,000 and became 50,000,000. 
We are now galloping through the fifth quarter, and the po- 
pulation at the end of it will fall not far short of 100,000,000. 
That is to say, the fifth single period of 25 years will witness 
as large a growth as the previous 100 years had done. 

Nor is this all. The population of Great Britain is over 
30,000,000. Its area is only 100,000 square miles, or about 



44 

300 to the square mile. Our own area is over 3,000,000 
square miles, not including Alaska. If our country ever 
becomes as thickly populated as Great Britain, we will have 
over 900,000,000. 

To live in such a country and in such an age is a grand 
thing. But to us all it brings corresponding responsibilities ; 
to none more than to Oberlin College and to its Alumni. 

The quarter of a century during which your beloved pre- 
decessor presided over this institution has witnessed wonder- 
ful things in the growth of our Alma Mater, and of this 
country and the world at large. But these are trivial and 
small compared with that which, God willing, shall take 
place during the coming years of your administration. That you 
will prove equal to all its responsibilities is the belief alike 
of the Faculty which unanimously nominated you and of the 
Trustees who have elected you to fill the Chair made sacred 
by the grand men who have preceded you: Mahan, Finney, 
Fairchild. May God bless you! May God bless Oberlin 
College! 



ADDRESS OF HON. JOHN SHERMAN. 



I accepted with pleasure the invitation to attend the com- 
mencement exercises of Oberlin College, for I knew that I 
should hear some things worth hearing. I came to hear, not 
to speak, and warn you that what I shall say will be with- 
out preparation. It is not my first visit to this place. I saw 
Oberlin in my younger days and have seen it many times 
since, but it is growing so fast that I can hardly find my 
landmarks. I had heard of Oberlin before I saw it, as many 
of its early friends and founders lived in Mansfield, and two 
of them, Father Keep and Mr. Walker, preached to me the 
doctrines and humanitarian ideas of Oberlin. I have always 
been interested in the sturdy principles taught here ; the love 
of liberty, human rights, without distinction of color or caste, 
and especially the love of the Union in critical times, and 
the wide and deep influence in forming the character of a 
multitude of young men who have had the good fortune to 
be educated here. I have no doubt caught something of this 
influence by contact with the men who laid the foundation 
of the College. 

The principal idea I wish to impress upon the young men 
before me is, that while the education and moral teachings 
of to-day are the same that have been taught in the past, and 
will be to future generations, yet each age and generation 
will have its peculiar and changing life and duties. The ge- 
neration to which I belonged was called on to meet a great 
crisis, involving the existence of Republican institutions. 
Its struggle with slavery and the civil war that followed will 



46 

always be regarded as an epoch fully equal in importance to 
the revolutionary period. The results — the abolition of 
slavery and the preservation of the Union, and especially the 
demonstration of the strength of our form of government — 
constitute an inheritance to the present and future genera- 
tions as valuable as Independence and a written form of 
government bequeathed to us by our Revolutionary Fathers. 
It will be conceded that the men of my time have filled the 
full measure of their duty, with fearful sacrifice of life and 
property. The members of this graduating class and their 
compeers will not, I trust, be called upon to perform such 
a task; but you will be expected to develop the resources 
and to extend the influence of a great country, already 
among the most powerful nations of the world. 

Your field of duty will be to combat and subdue and util- 
ize the forces of nature ; to substitute metal for wood, to de- 
velop and employ electricity, petroleum and natural gas and 
machinery as substitutes for manual labor. For this duty 
you have superior advantages of education, and the benefit 
of the wonderful discoveries of the past thirty years. You 
have been taught the highest lessons of life: reverence for 
God, love of country, and the same charity for others that 
you hope for yourself. If you will do in your day and gene- 
ration for your country and mankind as much as has been 
done by the generation now passing away, you will transmit 
to your successors a Republic doubled in population, with re- 
sources the human mind cannot now conceive, and an ex- 
ample and light for all the nations of the world. 



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